Pedrosa second as tricky conditions continue to plague MotoGP™

Friday, 28 September 2012

The Repsol Honda Team went back on track for the first day of free practice for the Gran Premio Iveco de Aragón, with Dani Pedrosa setting the second fastest time in the combined classification and Jonathan Rea placed in eleventh position.

In the morning, the first free practice saw a repetition of the conditions in Misano with bad weather marking the start of the fourteenth round at Motorland Aragón. After a 1 hour delay to the session, caused by oil on track from the previous Moto3™ session, Pedrosa did not complete any flying laps and Jonathan failed to go out at all, deciding nothing could be learnt from the 50/50 track conditions.

Pedrosa, on the quickest bike on track with a top speed of 330.5km/h, was just 0.066 off the fastest time in FP2 in the afternoon with cold temperatures and full wet conditions, while Rea finished 11th, 3.8 seconds behind pace man Ben Spies.

Dani Pedrosa

"At least we had a full wet session this afternoon to work with the bike and I felt quite good. I was catching the pace step by step, even though the grip was not very high in the rear, and we still have to adjust the setting a little more to improve in some corners. It looks like the weather forecast is also bad for tomorrow, so it will be important to take advantage of the morning practice to be well prepared for qualifying."

Jonathan Rea

"It's been pretty frustrating because I feel like we've lost another day, it's the same story as Misano! It was the first fully wet session we've had and the big difference for me was with the tyres and when they lose traction you can play with the rear grip slightly. I was riding a little too cautious today and I feel I need to push the tyres more and be more comfortable with the bike moving around. I wasn't too happy with myself as in the last few laps this afternoon I was on personal best sectors and I made a few mistakes as the front tyre didn't feel very stable. I guess we need to be thankful we were able to test here a few weeks ago and we completed over a hundred laps so for the dry we should be ok, but in the wet my feeling is still not 100%. Let's see what the conditions bring tomorrow."